Goals for our first alpha release
#published 2011-05-17 18:24
#author Christopher Allan Webber

I just got back from `Libre Graphics Meeting 2011`_ where, among other
things, I `spoke on a panel
<http://www.libregraphicsmeeting.org/2011/day-2#JonPhillips>`_ about
`free network services
<http://autonomo.us/2008/07/franklin-street-statement/>`_.  One thing
made clear during the conference this year is that interest in GNU
MediaGoblin is clearly high!

.. _Libre Graphics Meeting 2011: http://libregraphicsmeeting.org/2011/

We should couple this excitement with realistic expectations.  We've
mentioned that we're planning on having a public alpha in September /
October of 2011.  But what can users expect in that alpha release?

To start out with, here's what we have at the time of writing:

* Rather good infrastructure

  * Mongodb basic integration
  * A hopefully-extensible storage interface (though we only have
    basic files supported yet)
  * a good custom "unframework" that matches our needs very well,
    very `Django <http://djangoproject.com/>`_-like

* You can register
* You can submit an image and that works, but barely, and it's boring
* User galleries
* Individual media pages
* Good docs
* Some project public facing & communication stuff like docs,
  website, bugtracker


Not bad for a project that `merely announced itself publicly two weeks ago </news/gnu-mediagoblin-free-and-decentralized-media-sharing-in-development.html>`_!
But there's plenty left to do.

Here are goals for the September / October public alpha:

* Be able to upload and display images (just images for the alpha,
  and this mostly already works)
* Have a really slick theme (Jef van Schendel is making this look
  very likely!)
* RSS / Atom feeds you can subscribe to
* Translation infrastructure (in progress!)
* Commenting (threaded??)
* Database migration tools
* Creative Commons licensing ability
* Decent homepage including "featured" photos/artwork
* A way to check conversions: ones that are in progress, ones that
  fail, etc (currently images convert fast so not a huge deal, but
  no way to check on things that might take longer like video
* Password recovery
* RDFa markup
* Some way of culling spammers?  An audio/visual captcha? :(
* A hosted example on http://mediagobl.in/ (with heavy warnings that
  things are likely to simply break, don't use this for your
  permanent stuff yet)


Things I would love to see happen but doubt we'll get done by then,
but useful to think of as near-future things:

* A watch-list of other users you want to follow (think a statusnet
  timeline, but for media)
* starting work on OStatus integration (presumably simply
  PubSubHubbub support to start with)
* Slicker, in-place AJAXy uploading
* An API
* Multiple media types, especially video


If you haven't seen Jef van Schendel's mockups for
http://mediagoblin.org/ you `really ought to see them now
<http://schendje.fedorapeople.org/goblin/autonomous/>`_.  These aren't
permanent designs, but I think they show that we're already well on
our way toward looking awesome.  (I'd note that I've also made some
ascii art mockups of the `frontpage
<http://dustycloud.org/gfx/goodies/mediagoblin_frontpage_mockup.txt>`_
and an `individual view
<http://dustycloud.org/gfx/goodies/mediagoblin_media_view_mockup.txt>`_
but it's possible that only a limited portion of our audience would
appreciate this.)

I'm fairly optimistic about us meeting our goals, but that is largely
dependent on how many people step up and contribute.  If you're
interested in helping with the project, we could `really use your help
<http://bugs.foocorp.net/projects/mediagoblin/issues>`_ There's plenty
to do... graphic design, code, and so much more... even just spreading
the word can help!  But please, seriously, do `join us and help make
the dream of GNU MediaGoblin a reality </pages/join.html>`_!
